In residential and commercial construction, services such as water supply, drain waste vent (DWV), natural gas and electrical service are generally run within a wall or ceiling cavity. The wall or ceiling cavity is covered with a finish material such as a gypsum board to provide a finished appearance to the space. In many circumstances, it is required that access to valves, drains and connectors utilizing these services is maintained. In these situations, an opening is cut in the covering material of a size to permit access to the valve, drain or other connection. This opening is then covered by an access panel or access door which maintains the finished surface appearance while permitting access to the wall or ceiling cavity behind the panel or door.
There are presently available access panels of a molded plastic material where the access panel is provided with a spring clip on the back surface. The spring clip engages the interior surface of the wall cover material and sandwiches the covering material between the access panel and the spring clip. While such access panels are easy to install, they do not provide for a secure installation in that it is not possible to lock the panel to control access to the cavity opening. Also, the spring clip tends to loosen from the access panel with repeated use such that the average useful life of such panels is about 2 to 3 years.
Access doors constructed of metal or plastic are also known. The access doors constructed of metal are generally provided with an exterior frame having an L-shaped cross section with one leg of the L forming the exterior surface to overly the wall or ceiling covering material. The other leg of the L is provided with holes to allow for fastening of the access door to the opening in the wall or ceiling. Owing to the weight of the metal panels, it is generally necessary to provide for support such as wood strapping attached to the interior surface of the wall or ceiling covering material if the opening does not line up with an existing stud or joist in the wall or ceiling cavity. The metal door is generally provided with a hinge along one edge which is attached to one side of the frame, the door also having a locking means on the opposite side from the hinge to allow it to be closed and locked to the frame. The access door fits within the frame but is not airtight or soundproof.
Recently, plastic access doors have also been developed. These plastic access doors have an L-shaped frame similar to the metal access doors and the door itself is hinged in the opening by hinge pins which are placed interior of the edge of the door. While the plastic access door has a lower weight than the traditional metal access doors, it does suffer from certain disadvantages. Owing to the design of the door, similar to the metal access doors, the plastic access door is not airtight or soundproof. In addition, due to the placement of the hinges, the access door in the open position blocks off access to a significant portion of the opening and does not provide access to the full width of the opening. The access door must also be installed similar to the metal access doors by attaching to strapping placed on the interior surface of the covering material.
There thus remains a need for a light weight plastic access door which overcomes the disadvantages of the prior art designs.